Village Academy's Brihm fourth in shot put

JACKSONVILLE — Village Academy's Larry Brihm spent the majority of his career at the Delray Beach school playing quarterback on Friday night's for the football team.

On this Friday in late April, he was throwing around another ball in the shot put.

Brihm finished fourth with a throw of 47 feet, 1.5 inches at the Class 1A State Track and Field championships on the campus of North Florida University.

Holy Trinity was the boys champion with 80.5 points, while Tallahassee Maclay won the girls with 76 points. King's Academy finished eighth with 26 points.

"Shot put was kind of something I got to do as a team thing to stay in shape," Brihm said. "It came up pretty good and I did something in it."

The Bethune-Cookman signee didn't start throwing the shot put until late his junior year just prior to districts.

No medal was won from his newly adopted sport.

Brihm completed his senior year at quarterback, passing for 2,578 yards and 24 touchdowns in the fall, good enough to be named on the Class 2A All-State team.

"I just work on my technique and in the weight room to get better and to have strong shoulders and strong arms," Brihm said. "I felt I could have done better. ... I did really good. I would have rather to come in first."

Brihm said he plans to work hard at quarterback once at college, so Friday's fourth-place finish was probably his last participation in track.

"Not a whole lot of football players can say they won a medal in track," Brihm said.

Benjamin Horowitz, of Benjamin, was hoping to end his pole vaulting career on a better note than it did on Friday.

The senior finished sixth with a jump of 13-6. Considering he jumped 14 feet at regionals last week, it wasn't his best performance.

"There were a couple things that didn't work out like the consistency of my run," Horowitz said, who tied the school record at 14-4 early in the year. "It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I'm still happy because I medaled."

He added he's going to vault in college (Washington University in St. Louis) so it won't be the end of the road for him.

Riley Burke, of Benjamin finished fifth in the 200 at 26.32 and sixth in the 400 at 59.29.

The King's Academy girls 4x100 relay team finished second (49.50) to Melbourne Holy Trinity for the second consecutive year.

King's Academy would redeem themselves by winning the last event of the night, the 4x400 relay. The Lions' team of Dasi Wilkenson, Payton Campbell, Wentz and Cohen finished with a time of 4:03.14, just .05 ahead of Maclay.

Ben Manuel, of Trinity Christian, who was trying to win the first gold medal in track for this school, finished third in the 800 (1:58.18)